In what will be an early test for Republicans following the historic reelection of President Donald Trump to non-consecutive terms in 2024, wherein the GOP reclaimed the Senate and held the House of Representatives in Congress, Democrats continue leading the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races in the statewide average of polls compiled by RealClearPolling.com, by 7.1 percentage points and 3.8 percentage points, respectively.
Notably, not a single poll taken the entire cycle shown on the RealClearPolling site in either Virginia or New Jersey has shown Winsome Earle-Sears or Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican nominees, ahead of their Democratic counterparts, former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger and U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill.
To be fair, polls from groups like Trafalgar have shown Virginia within 3 points, and New Jersey within 1 point, in their most recent surveys. Overall, the spread in both races have tightened in the averages from 7.3 points to 7.1 point in Virginia and from 6.5 points to 3.8 points in New Jersey. So, it looks like New Jersey is a lot closer than Virginia in the governors’ races.
In the meantime, the race for Attorney General in Virginia has definitely flipped from Democratic challenger Jay Jones to Republican incumbent Jason Miyares, from a 4.8 point lead for Jones in September to now a 3.3 point lead for Miyares now with just a few days left to vote.
Jones told a Republican lawmaker Delegate Carrie Coyner in 2022 via text message he wished there’d be “two bullets” in the head of the Republican leader of the House of Delegates, Todd Gilbert, and then when she said to stop, he instead called her up to express his rationale, wishing that Gilbert’s children would die from gun violence so that more Republicans would oppose gun violence.
Since then, it’s been all downhill for Jones, even as not a single elected Democrat in the days immediately following the disclosure called for Jones to step out of the race.
As it is, with a Republican in the White House, the off-year elections in both 2025 and for Congress in 2026 are expected to favor Democrats, the opposition party, based on historical trends.
Therefore, any weakness shown by Democrats — the off-year elections are their moments to shine — will in hindsight be viewed as missteps by the party, compounding into 2028, when the historical trends will favor Republicans after only a single term in the White House, although Trump’s non-consecutive terms could confound that analysis. We’ll see. Â
Exigent factors impacting these races could include Jones’ staying in the Virginia race especially following the tragic politically motivated assassination of Charlie Kirk, the surge of Democratic socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race who is similarly leading all the polls, Andrew Cuomo breaking with his own party by running against socialism in his party in New York City, the President’s crackdown on crime and illegal immigration in America’s cities, and then finally the Democratic Party’s shutdown of the federal government as they demand an extortion of expanded Obamacare tax credits and to lift prohibitions on illegal aliens receiving public health care.
That’ll be the backdrop in just a few days. The consistent pattern emerging is the Democratic Party is being viewed as more radical, more tolerant of violence and more disruptive to the functioning of the federal government and even federal laws.
Usually, almost always in fact, off-year elections are a referendum on the White House incumbents, which is why they favor the opposition party. But sometimes, only occasionally, the races can flip, and become a referendum on the opposition. Come Tuesday, Nov. 4, we will see perhaps the beginnings of which might be emerging in 2026.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director at Americans for Limited Government.
